Blue O Two a Casualty of COVID

Popular British dive tour operator Blue O Two, best known for its Red Sea and Maldives liveaboards, but which also ran trips around the world with partners such as Master Liveaboards, has been put into administration, which is bankruptcy in the U.S. Owners Jason Strickland and Nathan Tyler place the blame squarely on the U.K. government's strict and constantly changing COVID travel restrictions.

They said, "The U.K. has had the most stringent travel restrictions in place. They have been consistently changing, hard to understand, and made it almost impossible to deliver what you all love doing the most - diving. With limited, tailored support for our sector, livelihoods, and families, were affected across the entire travel industry . . . During this period of huge uncertainty, decision-making has been very difficult . . . . Team members have got used to decisions one day having to be reversed overnight - depending on global government guidance and updates, in particular the U.K. travel restrictions. Given the financial damage caused by the pandemic, and despite our relentless best efforts to save Blue O2 Ltd, unfortunately, and with regret, the decision was made to cease trading."

Divers from the E.U. who had booked are most likely to be reimbursed through E.U. rules, and some divers had insurance policies that cover financial failure. If you're not one of them, you're out of luck unless you are one of the fortunate to have a credit card that covers such losses and you booked with it.

But this is not the end of Blue O Two. The proprietors also own another company, Scuba Tours Worldwide, spawned originally from Maldives Scuba Tours. They intend to continue offering dive vacations under the umbrella of this company, trading as ... Blue O Two.

If you were booked for a dive trip with the original company, more info is available here. (https://tinyurl.com/wauwkhhp)